jbredmound Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 I just keep thinking that these are very interesting times. Get Stevie's take on it here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quint Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 I just keep thinking that these are very interesting times. Get Stevie's take on it here Thanks for an interesting read. Ballmer is obviously intelligent and insightful; but I do not care for his condescending attitude, which he has no problem expressing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grasshopper Posted June 5, 2003 Share Posted June 5, 2003 "IBM's endorsement of Linux has added credibility and an illusion of support and accountability," Ballmer continued, "although the reality is there is no 'center of gravity,' or central body, investing in the health and growth of noncommercial software or innovating in critical areas like engineering, manageability, compatibility and security."Ballmer may be smart, but I don't think he's on the dot here.To me (little ol' me), a lack of a "center of gravity" is good for this situation. I think MS can only innovate so far. He is right that the IT industry has not hit commodity status yet, but IMO, MS will hit commodity status far before the open source market will, just because it's limited by its structure as compared to the lack of large structure but high following of open source. I don't subscribe to a utopian way of thinking but open source, once a little maturity sets in, is much more "centered" as a movement. MS is much too structured and controlled (the extreme opposite of a utopian way of thinking).Just my opinion. tbird Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nlinecomputers Posted June 6, 2003 Share Posted June 6, 2003 Hate to say this but to a certain extent I'm with Ballmer on this. One of Linux's problems is that in the open source community you have no deadlines, no timetables, no management of the software. How many Linux and OSS products are not even considered a version 1 by there own authors? Microsoft's security problems are not because Microsoft is RUNNING the show. It is because they are also the only ones overseing the show. If Microsoft's products were available for open peer review then the lack of Secuirty would be less of an issue with them. While diversity has it pluses in that a wide variety of software is available to the end user often the various software packages don't work well with one another. KDE verus GNOME is one example. For Linux to really take hold it is going to have to consolidate many software packages into one common and unified system. (Hint: Look at OS X) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grasshopper Posted June 6, 2003 Share Posted June 6, 2003 I don't agree.Who cares what version a piece of software or even an OS is. The proof is in the usage. Version numbers are a product of such a structured way of thinking, that it has completely infiltrated society. I don't call my recently born second daughter, tbird 2.1! Open source is in a PRIME position right now. Sure, no OS is perfect, but MS and Windows is overly mature, not commodity, but almost. Deadlines, timetables, management of software? That just sounds like MS. We are so brainwashed that their ways are axiomatic. In a fictitious world where everything is in "one common and unified system", you'll will inevitably have one company running the show and ruling the world so to speak. I don't think you give diversity enough credit. Competition (not competition as defined by Ballmer/Gates) is a good thing.I am straddling the fence right now: learning Mandrake Linux in order to become good at it and also keeping my WinXP Home up in order to run the applications and such that the mainstream has out there NOW, but, it'll be a good day when I can ditch MS completely and not have to depend on it to run my stuff. I just hope that Linux, and more specifically, open source and its diverse ways don't go the way of MS in "structure." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nlinecomputers Posted June 6, 2003 Share Posted June 6, 2003 Interesting you disagree with me yet you still make my point. You can't leave XP yet because there are not enough "mature" or "commodity" applications that do what you want to do yet. Linux is been out for 11 years. It still isn't ready for the desktop. I don't think it ever will. And I am a big user of it. But I'm not a joe six pack "commodity" user either. Grandma can't run it yet. And without some company that can pump big bucks into it that will never happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GolfProRM Posted June 6, 2003 Share Posted June 6, 2003 And without some company that can pump big bucks into it that will never happen.And any company that's going to pump big money into it is going to expect to get that money back out of it (see: History of MS).... so the process starts over again... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbredmound Posted June 6, 2003 Author Share Posted June 6, 2003 And any company that's going to pump big money into it is going to expect to get that money back out of it (see: History of MS).... so the process starts over again...Viola! The lights are coming on! I've been trying to say this in as many ways as I can think of!Windows "opened the door" to computing by the masses. The only way anyone will even dent M$ is to develop an OS that is highly supported, easy to use, and reliable. Does that rule out Linux? No! Does that rule out pure open source? You betcha!It's going to take a big player to do it (and it might (gasp) be** if they see competition on the horizon, or if they just dee a buck.Yes, the process starts all over again, but with competition, which ups the ante for everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent007 Posted June 6, 2003 Share Posted June 6, 2003 Ballmer continued, "although the reality is there is no 'center of gravity,' or central body, investing in the health and growth of noncommercial software or innovating in critical areas like engineering, manageability, compatibility and security."Whats he talking about?? Being an engineering student myself, we use GNU, Open Source software for programming, ckt design etc....Infact, for scientific and high-end mathematics stuff, there is nothing better than open source software.Running mission critical systems with Windows is a j0ke!007 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greengeek Posted June 6, 2003 Share Posted June 6, 2003 Did someone say "grandma can't run Linux yet"?I wonder who's installed Linux on seven of my twelve machines and uses them daily. Must be ghosts around here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GolfProRM Posted June 6, 2003 Share Posted June 6, 2003 Joy, while I agree that the comment was a bit too stereotypical, I don't think that Nathan was trying to attack you (or anyone else for that matter) IMO instead of using "grandma," he should have said "The average computer user can't run linux yet." I gather that's his point... 90% of the people I know wouldn't have a clue what to do in Linux as they'd be lost if the computer didn't automatically do everything for them. I somehow doubt that Nathan was trying to insult anyone, but his point is valid... and he could just be talking about his grandma, not grandmas in general. Besides, grandmas are the best! Somebody's got to spoil the kids, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbredmound Posted June 6, 2003 Author Share Posted June 6, 2003 Did someone say "grandma can't run Linux yet"?I wonder who's installed Linux on seven of my twelve machines and uses them daily. Must be ghosts around here.OK, but you are the "Little Old Lady from Pasadena". Grandmas with only three computers can't run Linux yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ragnar Paulson Posted June 6, 2003 Share Posted June 6, 2003 Running mission critical systems with Windows is a j0ke!Alot of people (myself included) having been saying that for 15+ years. But they've had 15 years to catch up and w2k and successors are there or just about there (multitasking and multiuser what an innovation! :-))Unfortunately it's still said about linux too. Mission critical requires 3 things:1. Reliability. I've had linux machines running for months and years, they're ok if you don't touch them.2. Accountability. Who do I call and yell at when they break ... Linus? Slight problem there.3. Maintainability, stability and backwards compatibility. When I deploy a mission critical system I have to know that I can rely on it for years. Perhaps a hardware upgrade here or there, a slight software add-on, a new feature. And it should cause me to rebuild the entire system from scratch with months of test and QA. Sorry linux you str not even close.If Linux wants to play in the business marketplace and not just the hobbyist marketplace number three has to be addressed. RedHat has unveiled a program (Advanced Server), not surprisingly it costs about as much as the old intel unixes. Ragnar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.